Despite the claimed success, the “rectification” campaign has been controversial from the start. The China Society for Hydropower Engineering, an academic research group, criticized the mass closures of small dams, arguing that small hydropower plays an important role in China’s clean energy transition and that the detrimental ecological impact of small hydro is exaggerated.
“While the unchecked development of small hydro is a major factor behind the environmental problem of many rivers, many of the existing problems can be solved by strengthening regulation and conducting technological upgrades of existing stations,” said Wang Yinan, a research fellow at the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Wang said that in implementing the rectification campaign, some local governments resorted to dismantling all small hydropower stations in their jurisdiction, rather than making science-based assessments of each dam, which may create new problems.
In Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi Province, 50 out of 52 small hydropower stations have or are scheduled to be dismantled. In six cities in the Qinling Mountains region including Xi’an, 251 out of 375 small hydropower stations, or 85 percent were dismantled or are scheduled to be dismantled.
According to an estimate from the Water Resources Bureau of Shaanxi Province, it will cost 8 billion yuan (US$773m) to demolish the designated small hydropower stations and compensate their private owners. As many of these power stations are in poorer mountain counties, local governments do not have the financial resources.
In Shaanxi’s Zhouzhi County, the local government needs to pay 117 million yuan (US$18.1m) to a local company that owns three dams scheduled to be dismantled. By comparison, the county government’s general revenue in the first half of 2020 was only 135 million yuan (US$20.8m). As there are still 29 small hydropower stations to be dismantled, the total costs go far beyond the county’s affordability.
Given the huge financial costs of dismantling the generating stations alone, many local governments resort to simply dismantling power-generating installations and equipment without removing the dams and restoring river conditions.
According to a report in the Hunan Daily, among 86 small hydropower stations dismantled in Zhangjiajie, home to a UNESCO global geopark, 35 dams were deemed too important to local livelihoods, for example to provide irrigation or drinking water, and kept intact.
“If a hydropower plant poses an ecological problem, it’s the dam that does that, not the power installations,” said Zhang Bingqin, who owns a hydropower plant in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.
“It doesn’t make sense to just dismantle power equipment,” Zhang noted.
Wang Yinan warned that by removing power installations, the dam structure would be subject to stronger impact of water flow, which poses a major safety threat. “Ninety percent of dam breaches were in non-powered dams,” Wang said.
“Power installations are an integral part of hydropower plants essential to maintaining its safety,” said Wang Yinan, “It’s completely unscientific [to dismantle power equipment but leave the dam].”